Have you ever found a great sofa or chair at a bargain price, but decided against buying it because its legs looked too ugly or flimsy? Read on for a couple of cost-friendly ideas on how you might solve that problem.

Most of us need to keep ourselves within at least some kind of a budget, and especially now, given our current economy. However, it’s still fun, every once in a while, to add a new piece of furniture to your home to freshen up your look and add more enjoyment to a room for your whole family. Or maybe you just want to take your existing sofa, and add some new life to it for very little cost?

Oftentimes, when I am looking for a new bargain piece of furniture, I will scan sources like Craig’s List for great resale pieces or scour though lower cost furniture stores like IKEA, to find a bargain piece that will help keep me within my budget.

But many times, when I do finally find a great piece at a great price, it seems the legs on that piece are often disappointing. So I was really excited to find a couple of new options that are now available to help solve that dilemma.

To get started and help you to determine if the piece you are considering is a candidate for this cost effective design makeover, examine the piece closely at the point where it’s legs attach. Many times you will find that the legs are attached to the frame with a bolt or that they screw (and unscrew) directly into the frame, which will make them easy to remove and replace with whatever more stylish replacements you might choose. So if you find that your furniture legs will easy unscrew from the piece you are considering, it’s likely that you will be able to implement this transformation to your piece fairly easily.

The first option I came upon, is offered by a company called Pretty Pegs and they have targeted their product specifically at the IKEA furniture line, which makes it easy to choose and match with IKEA’s product line. Below I have shown just a couple of their example pieces which will help you visualize just how much punch, changing out the legs, can add to a standardized IKEA product.

But, if you are more of the DIY type, or you just feel like you want to have more freedom to create your own unique “finish” for your new legs, check out the many unfinished furniture leg options that Ansaldi & Sons have to offer. And this company also offeres a lot of attachment type hardware, in case your legs do not easily unscrew and you need to come up with hardware to help retrofit new legs to attach them.